Pragmatic Failure In English Advertisements Of Chinese Products And Services

In the process of exporting, the advertising of Chinese products and services in English has played an important role in introducing our products and promoting the sales in the international market. Disappointedly, too many mistakes, confusions, and even misunderstandings have arisen from the current English advertisements, which actually cannot be accepted by foreigners and hinder the advertisements from achieving the expected effects of arousing purchasing interests of foreign consumers.This thesis thus focuses on cross-cultural pragmatic failure in English advertisements of Chinese products and services. Since advertising language is an important backdrop to any consideration of advertising effectiveness, the thesis, after explaining the significance and the rationale of the study in Introduction, specifies the definitions and functions of advertising, and the linguistic features of advertising language at lexical, syntactical and rhetorical levels are illustrated.With the help of Thomas's distinction between pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure, the study is then undertaken to explore the reasons for cross-cultural pragmatic failure in English advertisements of Chinese products and services, revealing that the reasons lie in the advertiser's ignorance or neglect of the differences in pragmatic rules, pragmatic meanings, associative meanings, and social values between Chinese and English.In order to find solutions to reduce or avoid pragmatic failure in advertisements, Adaptation Theory is adopted, which helps to analyze the linguistic and cultural factors that a Chinese advertiser has to adapt to in drafting English advertisements. As an advertiser, it is necessary for him not only to have profound linguistic knowledge but also to be well informed about the different cultures of the target country. Verschueren also points out that the success of communication relies on the...